Hacking The Definitive vWii Hacking Guide!

gondoi

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Hi, First I want to say great guide! Everything has worked perfectly to get things loaded up on my vWii. Kudos!

To start things off, I am coming from a Wii that I've been using for a few years and running everything off of a WD My Passport and using Configurable USB Loader. I made the assumption I would be able to just use the same hardware and setup just moved over to vWii. For the most part that assumption has worked out. The only problem I am having is that the Passport doesn't get enough power, as expected. I bought a USB Y cable, but I'm not happy with it, so I have another on order as well as a Toshiba drive that will hopefully work better.

Despite all this, I have another question about using USB Loader GX. When attempting to "install" a game, it was working but I was having issues due to the low power. The drive would spin up, copy some data over, and stop, and continue that cycle. This was going to take a LONG time, so I stopped it (I had to power down since `cancel` did not work). After getting the first Y cable I tried the install again. This time the game install started, but is still sitting at 0% and is not moving any data over. I assumed this was a crappy cable, so I went back to the original where the transfer was working, but the power just wasn't enough, but now I'm getting the same thing with that cable too. I also tried to remove the game directory from the drive directly, but install just won't start. I'll try all this again once I get the new drive and cable, but is there something that I am missing. Using the same hardware that was working is not working. What am I missing?

Thank you.
 

godreborn

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almost everything is working fine for me except NAND emulation. I'm trying to get Mega Man 9 and 10 working, but in cfw usb loader and usb loader gx, I'm kicked back to the homebrew channel whenever I open them. I don't want to install wads of them. I'd rather figure out what's going on. I installed the low NAND compatibility cios as per the recommendation. should I have installed the other one? if so, do I need to uninstall the original cios (if possible) or can I just install the new cios over the ones already installed? thanks
 

Cyan

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The drive would spin up, copy some data over, and stop,
what you described is usually an issue with flash drives, but you said it "spin up" so you are using an external hard drive?

You can try to set the IOS slot to 58 in the settings and restart the loader.
Settings > Loader's settings > Loader's IOS : 58

Maybe it can help, maybe not. some drives haves compatibility issues.

almost everything is working fine for me except NAND emulation. I'm trying to get Mega Man 9 and 10 working, but in cfw usb loader and usb loader gx, I'm kicked back to the homebrew channel whenever I open them. I don't want to install wads of them. I'd rather figure out what's going on. I installed the low NAND compatibility cios as per the recommendation. should I have installed the other one? if so, do I need to uninstall the original cios (if possible) or can I just install the new cios over the ones already installed? thanks
d2x r52 is the one to use for EmuNAND. (r53 has issues)

Some games are not compatible AT ALL with cIOS NAND redirection and you'll need NEEK NAND redirection instead.
games like Bonsai barber or castlevania (all rebirth series) only work with NEEK.

But based on that compatibility list, your games should work with d2x v10 on vWii :
http://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/Wii_cIOS_EmuNAND_Compatibility_List

If it reboot when launching a game, it's usually because it can't load the file (HDD disconnected, wrong partition, missing game data, etc.)
try making a new NAND dump of your vWii and install only these games.
Maybe your games are bad dump ?
 
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gondoi

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what you described is usually an issue with flash drives, but you said it "spin up" so you are using an external hard drive?

You can try to set the IOS slot to 58 in the settings and restart the loader.
Settings > Loader's settings > Loader's IOS : 58

Yes it is a HDD I've had for a while. I'll try IOS 58 today. Thank you for the suggestion.
 

godreborn

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d2x r52 is the one to use for EmuNAND. (r53 has issues)

Some games are not compatible AT ALL with cIOS NAND redirection and you'll need NEEK NAND redirection instead.
games like Bonsai barber or castlevania (all rebirth series) only work with NEEK.

But based on that compatibility list, your games should work with d2x v10 on vWii :
http://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/Wii_cIOS_EmuNAND_Compatibility_List

If it reboot when launching a game, it's usually because it can't load the file (HDD disconnected, wrong partition, missing game data, etc.)
try making a new NAND dump of your vWii and install only these games.
Maybe your games are bad dump ?

I managed to get emuNAND games working by changing to d2x r52, but I'm having a new problem. whenever I exit a game, I get a black screen.
 

Cyan

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do you have the USBLoaderGX forwarder channel installed?

when you exit a game, it's trying to return to the loader, to do that, it's patching the TitleID to reload at exit (usually it's reloading the System menu TitleID) with another Channel's TitleID.
Check that you have the forwarder installed, and that the "return to" option is set to return to that channel.

Settings > Loader settings > Return to : Select "USBLoaderGX" or "UNEO" channel, or any other channel you want to return to when exiting a game.


If it's already set like that but still black screen when exiting, then I don't know the cause.
is it doing it with all games, or only few, same region, etc. ? try to narrow the cause to find the issue.
 

godreborn

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do you have the USBLoaderGX forwarder channel installed?

when you exit a game, it's trying to return to the loader, to do that, it's patching the TitleID to reload at exit (usually it's reloading the System menu TitleID) with another Channel's TitleID.
Check that you have the forwarder installed, and that the "return to" option is set to return to that channel.

Settings > Loader settings > Return to : Select "USBLoaderGX" or "UNEO" channel, or any other channel you want to return to when exiting a game.


If it's already set like that but still black screen when exiting, then I don't know the cause.
is it doing it with all games, or only few, same region, etc. ? try to narrow the cause to find the issue.

well, I tried it with usb loader gx and cfg usb loader with the latter having a forwarder channel. the only games that have this issue r emuNAND games. I got a black screen when exiting both cfg usb loader and usb loader gx. with usb loader gx, I found no return to usb loader gx/uneo. it was just the homebrew channel or an unknown title that were listed. I was using mighty channels' plugin in cfg usb loader and whatever the default one is usb loader gx. I just don't get y this is happening.
 

gondoi

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@Cyan, Okay that "worked" after switching to IOS 58 the game installed, but after finishing the install the usb loader interface loaded but wouldn't respond to button presses on the remote. After a hard reboot, the channel was there, but the game just loaded Hombrew back up (the game crashed I guess). I decided to try again and wait to see if it was unpacking or creating some files and after deleting the game directory and starting over I have the same problem again from before. The Install starts but only sits at 0% without any data transfer that I can tell. Thoughts?
 

godreborn

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okay. I think I've managed to solve the black screen problem. I think it's due to using a wii's emuNAND rather than one created from the virtual NAND. however, I still can't find the option to return to usb loader gx. it appears that the unknown title was to cfg usb loader. I know where the return to: option is located, but there's no option to return to usb loader gx, just the homebrew channel and cfg usb loader.
 

gondoi

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I take that back. I let it sit, and it started installing again. I'm just going to be patient this time and see what it does.

Edit: It locked up again and it's a zero byte wbfs tmp file.
 
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Cyan

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Gondoi : sorry, I don't see what's wrong. Maybe just a hard drive issue.
try another device if you have.
some users found that NTFS has better compatibility, but you'll lost other homebrew support (emulators, nintendont)

Godreborn : you need to install the Forwarder channel to your vWii system menu in order to find it and let the game return to it.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/usbloadergx/files/Releases/Forwarders/
download and install the first one from the list (the "vWii Fix"), then you'll see it listed in the "return to" menu.

Note that it's working only for cIOS emuNAND, not NEEK emuNAND.
 
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godreborn

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@Cyan , thanks. I figured that out a little while ago. I was thinking that the only "return to" things were the forwarder channels themselves. somehow the unknown one (cfw usb loader) corrected itself. thus far, every wiiware game I've tried has worked without issue using regular emuNAND. :)
 
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laz305

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Can anyone help me out? I'm trying to install Channels USB Loader GX and WiiFlow but all they do is freeze and I have to power off. Well WiiFlow does I haven't even tried USB Loader in fear.
 

Cyan

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killmister2

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Thanks a lot for that guide, and to everyone that made it possible!

Everything gone smoothly on my Wii U, and have both Wii games on USB and GameCube games on SD (Wii U HDD is on a powered USB hub). 3 consoles in 1, just wow!
 
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godreborn

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Thanks a lot for that guide, and to everyone that made it possible!

Everything gone smoothly on my Wii U, and have both Wii games on USB and GameCube games on SD (Wii U HDD is on a powered USB hub). 3 consoles in 1, just wow!

that's the way I have mine except I'm using a y cable with my wii u hdd. my virtual wii is using a powered hdd enclosure. and, I have the virtual wii hdd using Ustealth with my gamecube games on the sd card with apps for both systems as well as redNAND. nothing ever needs to be unplugged or switched off that way. awesome-sauce!
 

gaga24

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I complete vwii hack with succsess. Everything works just fine. I use cios 52 for 249, 250, 251. Can i now run setup again and overwrite 52 with 53alt if i need to? Is this ok to do?
 

godreborn

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I complete vwii hack with succsess. Everything works just fine. I use cios 52 for 249, 250, 251. Can i now run setup again and overwrite 52 with 53alt if i need to? Is this ok to do?

yes, u can. I did that...or maybe it was the reverse...due to issues with emuNAND compatibility. the new cios will overwrite the old one.
 
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